My Financial Independence Journey: Monthly Update #19 (July 2018)

Summer has truly hit Denmark and it’s time for yet another monthly update – although this month will be special due to my wedding.

We are getting married in just a few days, and we are so excited. We have paid for most of the wedding now – and I’m not going to lie, it is twice as expensive as expected. Financials this month are the worst they have ever been (!), but the feeling of excitement and love is also the highest it has ever been (not to say that those have an inverse relationship)!

I don’t regret spending a single penny on the wedding so far. You only have one wedding in your life (hopefully), and sacrificing a few months’ worth of savings is definitely worth it. Doesn’t sound like a traditional frugal FIRE blogger? I know 🙂

I have not published a post in more than two weeks due to planning the wedding, which is the longest I have gone without posting since I started the blog in November 2016. It feels weird!

Personal life: What happened in June?

In a few days I’ll be married to my fiancé – and I’ll stop pestering you with words about the wedding. We have spent the majority of our free time in the past few months planning this wedding, and we have designed the wedding of our dreams. We have invited more than 100 people and even though we have been cost-conscious, there’s just some things we have not saved on (many guests, quality food, decent wine, enough drinks, a dream location etc.).

In June, I also got a salary increase of 5%, which was a pleasant surprise. I have been on holiday for the past week and will be on holiday for most of July, which I’m looking very much forward to.

Financials: How am I tracking on my early retirement goal?

June’s savings rate is the worst it has ever been for me, but I fully expected it. The savings rate this month includes all payments for the wedding (both the ones already made and the money we have set aside for all other expenses).

I got a negative savings rate of -75% this month (significantly down from 22% in May when the expenses started to occur).

I expect to be back on track next month with a much better savings rate. It is of course hard to take a hit on my savings, but I still believe it has all been worth it.

MoneyMow savings rate over time (%)

My take-home income was 34,531 DKK (5,755 USD) and I managed to spend 60,286 DKK (10,047 USD) resulting in the negative -75% savings rate. If I included earnings from the blog, it would be slightly better this month.

My 12-month rolling average took a hit decreasing to 37% from last month at 44%.

My net worth also took a hit this month decreasing to below my May net worth, but staying above my April net worth. This was mostly due to the wedding, but also negative returns on cryptocurrencies and the stock market.

My total assets including pension of 459,748 DKK (76,076 USD) is a decrease of -6.2% compared to last month’s net worth.

This means that I am now 10.2% of the way towards my early retirement goal of a net worth of approximately 4,500,000 DKK (750,000 USD) down from 10.9% last month. This is mostly because of the wedding, but also cryptocurrencies.

Stock indexes decreased with -2.2% this month which is a change compared to the previous months’ decent growth.

Peer-to-peer lending grew with 1.1%. Due to the very good returns, I expect to increase my position in cryptocurrencies in the coming months.

Pension remained relatively flat at -0.4% which is slightly better than my normal stock indexes. My pension investments have a bit different profile with some sector-specific investments (e.g. biotech).

Cryptocurrenciesdecreased heavily with -19.4% for the second consecutive month. Will we ever get back to the gold rush days?

My financials might change in the future, since my wife-to-be and I will combine our finances in a way we still have to figure out. More to come on this later!

Blogging: How did income and key metrics develop on MoneyMow?

Despite the lack of activity on the blog, traffic grew steadily in June – especially through organic and social channels.

As the past few months, I disclose how much I earn on the blog to be fully transparent:

Affiliate programs: 1,805 DKK (300 USD)

Sponsored posts: 0 DKK (0 USD)

AdSense: 95 DKK (16 USD)

The total blog income for June was 1,900 DKK (317 USD). This is slightly up from last month’s income of 1,625 DKK (271 USD). Somehow, I still get a lot of guest post requests, but fewer people are willing to pay than previously, which I don’t really understand.

The metrics for the blog in June were really good compared to the lack of activity:

Visitors: Visitors are still in four figures and grew with 14%

Page views: Page views are getting closer to 10,000 and grew with 7% last month

Facebook likes: Facebook likes are at 2,080 up from 1,960 last month

Twitter followers: Twitter followers are at 852 compared to 824 last month

Newsletter growth: The number of people following my newsletter continued rising this month with 9% reaching 143 subscribers

Favorite posts of the month

Even though the wedding took some time, I still managed to read a few great posts in June:

The Escape Artist wrote about the difference between frugal and cheap, which I believe is an extremely important distinction to make – especially non-FIRE people often mistake being frugal for being cheap.

Becoming Minimalist is a blog I keep coming back to, and this month there was a great guest post by Tara Button about the four monkeys of materialism that prevents us from becoming minimalists.

That was all I had for June. Next month, I’ll be back on track with a better savings rate and a new title as husband.

I just wrote a post on exactly that topic to be published in a few weeks 🙂 on the philosophical side, it was an amazing experience for us and we wanted it to be in certain ways, but we also wanted to give our families and friends an experience that was a bit different from traditional weddings. It was a “sacrifice” of two months’ salaries or roughly our yearly bonuses, so we decided that it was worth it for the biggest party we’ll ever arrange for ourselves and all our friends and family.